Orbital ATK (NYSE: OA), a global leader in aerospace and defense technologies, successfully launched a Patriot Target Vehicle (PTV) for the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC). Orbital ATK’s PTV served as an intercept target for the U.S. Army Lower Tier Project Office (LTPO) Patriot missile defense system. The PTV was launched on December 10, 2015 from Fort Wingate into the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico. It flew a southerly trajectory over WSMR and was intercepted by the Patriot Advance Capability-3(PAC-3) Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) interceptor system during reentry.

“We are very pleased to support the Air Force and Army with a fourth successful target launch, which flew its planned sequence precisely as expected culminating in a positive intercept indication,” said Rich Straka, Vice President and General Manager for Orbital ATK’s Launch Vehicles Division. “We look forward to future tests with the PTV to continue supporting the readiness of the nation’s Patriot system.”

Orbital ATK has been supporting the U.S. Air Force with ballistic target systems for more than 20 years. The development of the first PTV target vehicle took just over two-and-a-half years and relied heavily on flight-proven designs from other Orbital ATK launch vehicles, such as the Medium Range Target, Storm target and Pegasus® space launch vehicle.

Orbital ATK is one of the country’s most experienced developers and operators of missile defense-related launch vehicles. The company supports virtually all of the country’s major missile defense programs with highly reliable and cost-effective target vehicles.

Orbital ATK produces its missile defense interceptors and related target vehicles primarily at the company’s engineering and manufacturing facility in Chandler, Arizona and its vehicle assembly and integration facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California and Huntsville, Alabama.

In addition to the Patriot program, Orbital ATK’s target vehicles support test of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense, Missile Defense Agency’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense system (GMD) and THAAD systems. Orbital ATK also produces the Coyote ramjet-powered supersonic naval target vehicle used to test ship self-defense systems for the U.S. Navy.